When I started this series I thought it would be much simpler than it’s turned out to be. Each of these myths about our Church are more wide-spread and more serious than I expected them to be. Finally, today’s topic is a bit of a relief. It can be dispelled very simply even though some people will probably not be convinced.

To give you an idea of how much some people dispise our Church, here are a couple of tweets from the Holy Father’s twitter page.

@Pontifex maybe you should give up kidf***ing and idol worship for lent.

@Pontifex yes, they are worshipping idols and a petty perverted anti-Christ in a false church that hates the Lord.

OK, we get it. You don’t like the Church. But this is one myth that is easily shot down. Yes, we do have a lot of statues in our churches, statues of Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and other saints. My particular church, Saint John Nepomuk Chapel in Saint Louis, MO, has more than forty of them. We don’t worship the statues nor the people they represent (with the exception of Jesus). We’ll deal with whether we worship saints or not in another post, but for now let’s just talk about the statues.

When this myth is thrown up the simplest way to deal with it is to ask the other person if they have any pictures in their wallet or on the walls at home. Ask them to see what’s in their wallet. They will surely have a picture of a loved one. Next, ask them if they love the picture. No, they don’t love the piece of paper and the ink that stains it. They love what the picture represents. Same thing with Catholics. I don’t love that hunk of plaster and paint that sits above our altar. But I do love Jesus who is represented by the statue.

Statues are a visual reminder. That’s all. We don’t worship them at all any more than I worship the picture of my wife that I carry with me. (Actually, like many people today, I carry pictures of all my family on my phone. I can promise you, I don’t worship or even love my phone.) Until He comes again, we can’t actually see the face of Jesus (except in the faces of others). A statue, or a medal, or any other holy article is just a reminder; no more-no less.